East, Boylan win to set up all-NIC-10 sectional final

Monday

HAMPSHIRE — It wasn’t supposed to be this easy, not for a team that hadn’t had a winning season in its conference in 28 years. And then, after that easy start, it wasn’t supposed to be so hard.

East almost blew a 16-point halftime lead, but hung on to beat Streamwood 51-45 tonight in a Class 4A girls basketball sectional semifinals. The E-Rabs (25-6) will now play NIC-10 champion Boylan (30-1) in Thursday’s title game.

“It was great in the beginning, but it isn’t how you start, it’s how you finish,” East coach L.A. Malone said. “So I’m real upset about that.

“And then those calls were ridiculous.”

East went on an 18-2 run to take an early 18-4 lead and led 30-14 at the half. But Streamwood not only cut it to 37-34 with 7:05 to play in a flurry of fouls, the E-Rabs were also in the double bonus with 10 fouls to Streamwood’s two.

“The refs were calling fouls, so it was a tough thing,” Mardaeja Cross (15 points) said. “We kept pushing through it. As long as I wasn’t in foul trouble, I was cool. I wasn’t worried.”

Led by Hecox, who scored 12 of her 16 points in the fourth quarter, including 7 of 8 free throws.

“Madi was clutch,” Cross said. “She was the girl to get the ball to.”

East had never won 20 games before. Now the E-Rabs have won 25.

“This shows anything is possible,” Hecox said. “People can doubt us, but we just proved we're not a team to mess around with. Our seniors want to go out with a bang, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Boylan 47, Dundee-Crown 37: Boylan’s defense usually starts the Titans’ offense, but the offense never got going this time.

“It was all defense,” coach Paul Perrone said. “We shot horribly."

But the No. 5-ranked Titans (30-1) were sure there on defense. Boylan trailed by as much as 17-10 against a team it routed 56-27 in November. The Titans couldn’t handle Allison Michalski (26 points), who kept driving for layups.

Until, that is, Boylan switched to a zone and pressed full court. Dundee-Crown (18-12) had nine turnovers and 1-for-4 shooting in the last five minutes of the half against that defense as Boylan eked out a 20-19 lead.

“We always pride ourselves on defense,” said guard McKenzie Brown (25), who combined with Ashley Reyes (15) to score 40 of Boylan's 47 points). “Coming down the stretch you, you lose, you go home, so we were willing to do anything to keep winning.”

Boylan finished with a 24-13 edge in turnovers, led by Reyes' five steals and Brown's four, and made 11 of 13 free throws in the last two minutes to pull away after being tied 29-all with five minutes left.

“We knew they were prone to passing errors,” Perrone said. “Our man-to-man just wasn’t doing it for us, so we went into a 2-2-1 zone and it put a lot of pressure on them. It changed the tempo of the game and gave us a victory.”